


the sensation of something moving

by tomatocages (kittu9)



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Canon Queer Character, Domestic, Families of Choice, Female Friendship, Friendship, Gen, Other, Soup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-06
Updated: 2014-02-06
Packaged: 2018-01-11 09:07:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1171256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittu9/pseuds/tomatocages
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Felicity just wants one thing in her life that doesn't revolve around Oliver Queen. Oddly enough, that one thing might be her friendship with Sara Lance.</p><p>(Compliant with 2x13)</p>
            </blockquote>





	the sensation of something moving

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [There Is No Word](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/244194), by Tony Hoagland.
> 
> I have a lot of feelings about 2x13.

Starling City doesn't usually have sub-zero weather, and the city infrastructure isn't prepared for the snap when it comes. Felicity’s not sure why. If she has time to watch the weather report, there is no reason the people actually in charge don’t have time to watch it, too.

Fortunately, the city's criminals don't have much impetus to act out, out of apathy or a latent desire to hibernate—but when Thea heads to Puerto Vallarta to escape the cold ("What's the point of having the option of going to Mexico if I don't take it, Ollie, this weather is inhumane"), it means Oliver is utterly at loose ends.

Oliver is larger than life. In a lot of ways, he makes Felicity uncomfortable: his history of wretched excess, his psychological trauma, his weird messianic tendencies, his abs. In a lot of other ways—buying her coffee in the morning, asking about her day, trading horrible jokes with Diggle, rearranging his schedule to have lunch with his sister—he's just a man she happens to love, a man who sometimes touches her shoulder, a man named Oliver. The root of the problem is that he lacks a sense of proportion. (It would help if any part of his life involved a sense of proportion, she'll concede the point.) 

"Are you sure nothing's come in?" He asks. They're talking over the phone; officially, the HR department at Queen Consolidated has issued a work-from-home day, so Oliver is at home in Walter's old study and Felicity is at her kitchen table, working on a cup of coffee and Oliver's staggeringly full email inbox. She did actually clean her apartment and shower and dress like a normal person. Ever since taking up with a vigilante, Felicity has started to appreciate the virtue of being prepared to go somewhere in a hurry and at the drop of a hat. 

"I would have told you if something came up," she sing-songs for the tenth time this morning. She likes working from home; it’s quiet and there’s room to breathe. "You should be grateful, anyhow. It's not super safe to be out in any capacity right now, what with the city not actually salting the roads, and you need to go over the projected outcomes for the next quarter, anyway." 

"Felicity," he says.

"I don't even know why you're fussing, seriously," she tells him. "This is not new information. It's been on your desk since the first of the year."

Oliver just huffs in irritation, and the sound transmits over the phone line as a rushing crackle. "It's inconsequential."

"It's your livelihood," Felicity says, but kindly; she knows he's out of his comfort zone. "You just have to sit down and sift through it, it's part of life as a hotshot CEO playboy. Businessman."

"I got a D in tenth grade algebra," he says. "What makes you think I have any notion of how to study?"

"I think you're just bored," she says. "Truthfully, Oliver, if anyone has the capacity to withstand torturous monotony, it's probably you. Refresh your inbox, I've flagged your emails for you. There’s a preliminary invite to one of those charity galas, it’s one I don’t recognize."

"This is ridiculous," he grumbles. She can hear him clicking his mouse over the phone line; he's not slow on the computer, but he's not intuitive, either, and it's a little grating to listen to. "I'm about to print everything out just so I can burn it."

"It actually might help you to see it all laid out," Felicity says. She's resigned to being on the phone with him for another hour, and she is so glad they have used Bluetooth from the start. She sets up the documents to print remotely. "Look, I'm happy to go over this with you—thank me, Oliver. I do not have a business degree—but Sara's coming over later and I will not answer your calls during lunch."

"Sara?" Oliver latches on, completely missing her point, as usual. "Is something wrong?"

"Focus," Felicity says. "One hour. Answer your emails." There is so little of her life that does not revolve around Oliver Queen; Felicity just wants to make it through to her lunch date with Sara without him intruding, even metaphysically.

Oliver sighs, again. He has no phone etiquette, so Felicity gets the full force of the sound right in her ear. It's almost like being in the office, when he leans over her computer and invades her personal space rather than figure out where he has saved the latest version of any document Felicity has ever emailed him. "Why is Sara coming to your apartment during a freeze, Felicity?" He’s got that tone, where he sounds wary and kind of defensive, like his tone of voice will do all the hard work of keeping his secrets. Felicity is not an idiot.

"I think the projected earnings from this quarter are a little high, what with your company's being part of a takeover and your mother in the midst of a lawsuit—sorry, just telling it like it is—but you guys did have that merger last year, I don't know," she babbles. "When you get into the millions and billions, it's all funny money. It's actually a little horrifying?"

 "Felicity."

"I'm having lunch—off the clock!—with a friend, Oliver," Felicity says. She isn’t apologizing; she deserves this. "You have forty minutes to go over these numbers with me, what you do after that is your call."

It takes a little longer than forty minutes for him to actually make any sense of the numbers. It wouldn’t be this hard if he ever read past the executive summary, but then, it wouldn’t be this hard if Oliver weren’t also trying to save the city. But at last she disconnects her Bluetooth and logs out of the VPN, because if she can’t see the edits he’s making to the quarterly reports, she doesn’t have to correct his typos.

Sara has already arrived and let herself in—Felicity has stopped keeping track of how many times her partners in crime just casually violate her privacy, because Felicity actually does not have the moral high ground on this one. It’s a Wednesday; since Sara has settled in Starling City, Felicity has issued an open invitation for Sara to come over for whatever meal is closest. It gets both of them out of Verdant, and it usually means Felicity occasionally gets to take off her shoes. Lately, when Sara does come, she brings groceries and the two of them cook. Felicity is at a point in her existence where she subsists on freeze-dried blueberries, takeout, and coffee; Sara at least tries to remember family recipes without looking them up on the internet.

Today, they're making soup: Sara chops onions while Felicity stretches the kink out of her spine before she digs in the cabinet for noodles.

"I've been on the phone all morning, my apartment is now an Oliver-free zone," Felicity announces. "Tell me about your life. You're a magical creature, by the way, no normal human can chop onions without abject weeping. I'm tearing up just watching."

"It does help that you remembered to put it in the fridge," Sara says. "It's not exactly cause for a Hogwarts acceptance letter."

This is why Sara will always be Felicity's favorite. "I still haven't recovered from not getting a Hogwarts letter. It's a wonder I function as well as I do," Felicity says. She finds the noodles—egg, mostly broken, it's an old bag—and comes over to Sara's cutting board. "I think I would have been in Ravenclaw. —Will these work? I don’t even know what kind of soup you’re making."

Sara looks down at the onions on the board for a second, like she might cry after all, and everything Felicity knows about her—familial drama, _Oliver,_ her little understanding with pain—goes out the window. Sara looks like she never really came up from under the water, when the boat when down.

There is nothing in the world, let alone between the two of them, that could prevent Felicity from wrapping her arms around Sara and holding on, still holding the package of egg noodles in one hand. It's a little awkward—Felicity is taller and Sara hasn't, she's pretty sure, been hugged without clear signals in a long time—but after a second they get their elbows in order. Sara unbends, until she's almost relaxed in Felicity's arms; she drops her head down against Felicity's shoulder for a second. It's the most discreet expression of grief Felicity has ever witnessed, and she feels a stab of intense empathy. Sara doesn't deserve to be so alone, so unhappy. She squeezes Sara a little tighter, fiercely, and is gratified when it startles a laugh out of her; Felicity will happily remain an awkward, babbling moron for the rest of her life, if it means she can make Sara laugh.

"This helps," Sara says.

"Good," Felicity says, her eyes watering from the onions and the knowledge that she has helped Sara, even if it's a very little. "Whatever you need. You're totally a Gryffindor, by the way, and this one time, that's a compliment."

They stand at the counter for a long time, holding on. Felicity doesn't need the nitty-gritty details of all Sara's been through, and Sara doesn't need to worry that Felicity will say the wrong thing to the wrong person—and that's the nicest thing, Felicity thinks. That she has one more person who she can trust.

Eventually, they do make that soup, and they eat it at the kitchen table after Felicity moves her work machines over to the living room. It almost tastes good.

Afterwards, Felicity washes the pans and sets up her computer again, but Sara doesn't head out like she usually does.

"I would be one hundred percent thrilled if you stayed," Felicity says, re-accessing her VPN. "I have a few more hours I have to put in, but it's really nice to see you."

Sara—doesn't look like she knows what to do with that information, but it's the truth. Felicity is not going to waste time by beating around the bush, not when she has so few people to be honest with. "Are you sure it's okay?"

"Positive!" Felicity smiles and bites her tongue a little. "You can take a nap or judge my Netflix queue or whatever, it’s a safe place."

Sara pauses. "Could I take a bath?"

"I cleaned the tub this morning," Felicity says, shimmying a little in delight. "Go pickle yourself."

She shows Sara where the clean towels and bath salts and discount spa treatments (thank you, CVS) are. It doesn't take long, but she's still about five minutes late logging back into her work machine. Usually Oliver wouldn't even be online yet, but judging from their earlier conversation, he's bored and waiting.

"You're late," he says.

"Pot, meet Kettle," Felicity replies. "Did you submit your comments on the quarterly statements?"

"Those things are medieval," Oliver says. "What happened?"

"Contrary to popular belief," Felicity says, "I do not get taken hostage every time I hang up the phone. Quarterly statements?"

"Felicity."

"Mr. Queen," she reminds him. This is her job.

"I sent you a copy of my comments but I didn't submit them." It sounds like it's killing him to stay on topic, but Felicity told him that he had to be a professional if he wanted her to watch his back at QC, and eight times out of ten, Oliver keeps his word. She clicks through her email—five messages, all from Oliver, all non-urgent—and reads through his comments.

"Pretty sure someone who used to live his life like it was a Freddy Mercury ballad can come up with something better than 'looks alright,'" she says. "Do I have to talk you through it?"

"I dropped out of four colleges, Felicity, what do you think," he snaps.

"I think this is not your strongest work and that you can do better. Don't get snippy with me, Einstein, I'm on your side." Before Oliver, Felicity was not aware that real people actually growled. She has since realized that onomatopoeia is the core of his vocabulary.

Eventually, he hammers out something that makes sense, and she only corrects his spelling twice. It’s something of a record, more because Oliver is too annoyed to proofread than because he’s actually a poor speller.

"Thank you," Oliver says, the way he always does when he actually means it. It's a little hard to hear over the Bluetooth; his voice always drops down and gets soft, when he’s grateful.

"You're welcome," she says, because Felicity has always had faith in Oliver's capacity for self-improvement. "There, that's it, you can play hooky for the rest of the day. I don’t imagine anyone’s going out tonight."

"I might go to the club anyway, get some work done," he says vaguely.

"Well, I'm staying home," she says. "Call me if you're planning to head into the office tomorrow."

There's a short silence, like he's surprised she isn't going to try and start her car and then drive on black ice to a poorly-lit part of town, just to keep him company. Well, not all of her life revolves around Oliver Queen, and Felicity has a houseguest.

"Fine," he says, because heaven forbid Oliver actually tell her how he feels. "I'll let you know." He hangs up without saying goodbye. Sometimes, Felicity really hates that about him.

She logs off the company system and stretches until her shoulders crack; Sara got out of the tub a while ago, and she's been reading one of Felicity's library books on the couch. Felicity drags herself away from the table and flops down next to Sara, indiscriminately, so they're pressed up close against one another. It's the way Felicity used flop down onto her roommate's bed in college, after a particularly rough lecture: casual, defeated, not really that upset about it.

"How's the book?"

Sara makes and face and marks the page with her index finger. Her elbow jars Felicity a little, and they resettle. "It's okay."

Felicity looks at the spine and grimaces. She's had that one checked out way past the lending period. This is why she usually sticks with e-library books: no fines. "Yeah, that's probably why it was stuck between the couch cushions."

They sit together for a few minutes. Sara flips idly to the back of the book and skims the last chapter before setting it down. Her hair is still damp from her bath, and it’s left a dark mark on her t-shirt. She looks—lovely, Felicity thinks, without envy or judgment. She looks a little less haunted than she did the week before. It says something unpleasant about Felicity’s day-to-day expectations that this is what counts as a triumph: that having lunch and a moment of quiet is a victory.

“Oliver said—” Sara starts, and starts over when Felicity almost gives herself whiplash, just turning to look her in the eye, “—Oliver said you’re seeing someone?”

Felicity relaxes back down and rolls her eyes. “It’s—a dream of someone,” she says. “There was this guy—but he got struck by lightening and he’s in a coma, and the last time we talked it was largely theoretical, so.” She hasn’t really thought about Barry lately. She barely has room in her head to think about sleeping, let alone—there was a short story she read once, in school, and she thinks it applies: _potentiality knocks on the door of my heart_. “God, it’s weird to talk about this. I haven’t had a non-work conversation in _forever._ ”

What is Felicity supposed to say in response, ask how things are going with Oliver? How things went with Nyssa?—they drop that conversational thread pretty quickly in favor of spending an eternity scrolling through Felicity’s Netflix queue. 

“It literally doesn’t matter what we pick,” Felicity wonders aloud, “and yet I still cannot make a decision. What if I hate it?”

“You give yourself too many options,” Sara says. She's not wrong: information overload is one of the key elements of Felicity's personality. 

Oliver shows up a little after seven, in street clothes; it’s dark out, but the kind of dark where the sky is pitched apricot and it’s threatening to snow. So much for an Oliver-free zone; Felicity places a small bet with herself that he looked up Sara’s tracker and thought he could kill two birds with one stone. 

“Ollie,” Sara says when he walks in the door. Oliver, too, doesn’t bother waiting to be let in, which is possibly a metaphor for Oliver’s life. Felicity is a little grateful that Sara doesn’t move from her spot next to Felicity on the couch; it feels like Sara is choosing sides, even though the thought’s absurd. In response, Oliver gets that look on his face, the one where he looks mostly normal, but also like he would rather be anywhere but here. As usual, it’s his own fault. 

“Hey,” he says. It’s Oliver Queen for not remembering how actual humans converse.

“Did you call him for a ride or something?” Felicity asks Sara.

“I think he’s worried I’m corrupting you,” Sara says, laying her head back down on Felicity’s shoulder.

“No fighting, no biting,” Felicity says, and adjusts her glasses. “We are watching a movie. Either sit down or come back later, everyone is off the clock tonight. Even tortured vigilantes need their beauty sleep. I mean, _a chance to recuperate_.”

Both Oliver and Sara make their laughing-at-Felicity faces—she can feel the rise of Sara’s cheekbone against her shirt—so Felicity just counts it as a win and tries to move on. She’s not really sorry. Oliver does, actually, sit down next to them, but carefully, so he doesn’t invade their space.

To the outside observer, it’s a cozy scene, one that’s almost intimate (Felicity’s life is jam-packed with a lot of things, but she can count her real, intimate interactions on one hand): the three of them on the couch, close enough that they could talk during the movie without talking over the movie, if Oliver or Sara were the type to talk during a movie at all. Felicity _knows_ that about them—that they probably used to talk nonstop during movies, but now they just kind of study the characters on screen with a hyperawareness that Felicity recognizes from her own self. It’s the intensity of a person who isn’t really sure how to read context without the aid of SparkNotes.

Occasionally—she feels guilty and bitter about admitting it, even to herself—Felicity has resented her own intelligence. The way her mind looks at code and puzzles and right and wrong and wrangles answers out of the muck is _exhausting_. For years, she felt like she was wasting all that ability anyway. Things are different since she started working with Oliver, and they’ve kept on changing: she sleeps less, but at least it’s not because she's lying awake, her mind focusing in real close on all the ways that Felicity is failing herself. She has a purpose. She's grateful. But Felicity is lonely, in a way that someone like Oliver Queen will never contemplate; her life is wrapped up in purpose, but it's clinical and sharp and a little empty. Sometimes she thinks about explaining it to Sara—of all the people in her life, Felicity thinks Sara would understand that Felicity is not being arrogant when she says she's usually the smartest person in the room. In all likelihood, it’s something she’ll never be able to articulate, but at least that’s something she knows both Oliver and Sara—and even, especially, Diggle—would understand and expect from her. 

This is honesty, Felicity thinks. It feels a little too large for the space she lives in. One of these days—she might get used to it. 

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. How do you know I have written a story? Someone is making soup. That's it. 
> 
> 2\. Do season/regions really matter in fanfic???? 
> 
> 3\. Felicity is thinking of "On Seeing the 100 % Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning," by Haruki Murakami. 
> 
> 4\. This started as a story where Sara comes over to teach Felicity some self defense moves, but _things change_.


End file.
